The German Environmental Specimen Bank:

Abstract

Introduction: In addition to individual environmental exposures, human biomonitoring (HBM) results are influenced by behaviors, e. g. smoking and food consumption as well as anatomical or physiological factors, e. g. sex and urine volume. Assessing environmental sources of pollutant levels in human samples must therefore also consider these influencing factors, as well as their inter-correlations. Methods: The German Environmental Specimen Bank (ESB) regularly collects human samples which are analyzed for various substances before being cryo-archived. Analyses of physiological sample parameters, e.g. urinary creatinine, are additionally performed. Each year samples from 480 adults (20-29 years) from four German cities are acquired. All participants fill in standardized questionnaires on their exposure relevant behaviors and report on their anthropometrics. Results: 1) Bivariate analysis yielded significant correlations between levels of perfluorinated compounds (PFAS) and protein in plasma. No association resulted for PFAS and body-mass-index. PFAS are higher in males. 2) Multivariate evaluation of Hg in urine resulted in significant associations with dental amalgam and fish consumption, explaining more than 50% of variation. 3) Mainly due to reduced emissions, lead in blood (PbB) decreased on average from 77.5 in 1985 to 11.7 nano-g/L in 2013. Smokers tend to have higher PbB levels. PbB is also constantly higher in males. 4) Mean Cu in blood differs substantially by sex: (2013: females: 1.4 vs. males: 0.9 mg/L), with oral contraceptives as one possible reason. For urinary Cu no such differences are observed. Conclusions: ESB data allows for analyzing associations between HBM data, environmental exposures, physiological/anatomical parameters and individual behaviors. This data support the further improvement on HBM studies in environmental health research and contribute to a better standardization of HBM data. Further augmenting HBM trend analysis by multivariate evaluation is warranted. Acknowledgements: The ESB is funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety. In: Human Biomonitoring : 2nd International Conference on Human Biomonitoring, Berlin 2016 ; Science and policy for a healthy future ; April 17 - 19, 2016, Langenbeck-Virchow-Haus, Berlin, Germany / Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz, Bau und Reaktorsicherheit; Umwelbundesamt. Berlin: 2016, Seite 66